Battling on

The pantomime in London that dominated our news channels last week didn't depict the only battle that was going on.

We are still battling to keep our crops going on the allotment. We still haven't had any rain. Martyn, has a weather station in our garden and last week he told me that we hadn't had a day when the rainfall reached double figures in millimetres since February. Martyn has posted more details about our lack of rain here. We have also posted a video showing the state of our plot here.

We are trying our best to give plants enough water to keep them going but any watering that we manage can't penetrate far into the ground. The wind and latterly the heat soon dries the soil. Watering is made all the more difficult as when there is more than one person filling a watering can at any one time, the pressure drops and you can only fill it very slowly.  

Over the weekend it has been too hot to garden during the day and we have had to pop to the allotment to water in the evening when lots of people have had the same idea.

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

June in pictures

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett

Tasty berries

It's been a very frustrating week weather-wise. We have had a little rain but only enough to dampen the top few millimetres of soil. Short showers tend to dry up before they do any good. Our frustration has been compounded by it seeming to rain everywhere but on us. We were driving home along the M1 the other evening when the heavens opened. Visibility was limited and water was standing on the carriageway. We were only three or four miles from home so thought that the rain must be reaching us. As we continued the sky began to brighten and when we arrived home the ground was merely a little damp. Then during the coverage of the British Grand Prix  they had rain on and off for most of Friday and Saturday.

Does anyone know of an effective rain dance?

We've been busy on the allotment weeding, watering and harvesting. The weeding and watering don't lend themselves to any worthwhile photo opportunities but our first lot of peas are beginning to flower and I thought that the flowers of the Kent Blue peas were really pretty.

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Copyright: Original post from Our Plot at Green Lane Allotments http://glallotments.blogspot.co.uk/ author S Garrett